


Futile Devices

by covertCalligrapher



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Illustrated, Kinda, fill for secret karezi time on tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-07 12:22:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/748456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/covertCalligrapher/pseuds/covertCalligrapher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sleeping amongst the dream bubbles is a strange experience. Round, hollow balls that hold eons of memories and universes of lives, every day and night blends into the next. The circles of shining color denote different areas where a soul is either finding temporary or eternal rest, waiting for you to flow through and disturb them with your company. You think it should make them angry, to be disturbed as by the living, but they seem to take it in stride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Futile Devices

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Xelfi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xelfi/gifts).



**Futile Devices**

 

Sleeping amongst the dream bubbles is a strange experience. Round, hollow balls that hold eons of memories and universes of lives, every day and night blends into the next. The circles of shining color denote different areas where a soul is either finding temporary or eternal rest, waiting for you to flow through and disturb them with your company. You think it should make them angry, to be disturbed as by the living, but they seem to take it in stride.

 

You are not such in your dealings with the dead.

 

Your name is Karkat Vantas and you are asleep in a dream. You were staring at yourself as you slept restlessly on the pile of rubber and metal horns. You'd eventually gotten bored of watching you as you drooled like a fool and left for other parts of the dream bubbles.

 

You're away from yourself for 20 minutes, or perhaps even 20 years. You can't quite make out the passage of time like this. It's after a certain amount of existing, however, that you trip and jar yourself awake. Your face connects with the ground and you feel a sharp numbness before your consciousness returns to your flesh and blood body, and not a simply projection of what would pass as your soul.

 

You crack your eyes open and see a familiar girl decked out in red, curled into a sitting position next to the pile. You shuffle around on the horns, causing them to let out weak squeaks. She turns her head over to you, facing you.

 

You can't see her eyes, but you feel her cherry gaze through the hood.

 

“Hey, Terezi,” you grind out sleepily, your voice gravely. You clear your throat.

 

She doesn't say anything, just continues to quietly stare at you with her not-eyes.

 

“What are you doing here?” you ask, moving into a sitting position. The pile protests this, horns falling off and screeching their disapproval.

They sound accusatory your imagination. You miss Gamzee, perhaps.

 

“You wanna use the pile?” you ask, trying to coax a sentence, a phrase, a _noise_ from her. Anything so you can acknowledge that she's really here and not a freaky-ass projection that are so common to this certain state of existence.

 

She shakes her head and rests it on her pulled-up knees. A small sigh comes from her curled form, and you frown at her.

 

She was sitting her watching you as you slept, something that your people take very seriously. The nature of trolls dictates that you always act with such a brutality that you assert your dominance over others. To watch over someone when they are at their most vulnerable is a very heart-felt and intimate gesture.

 

To continue to do this after sweeps denotes that two people care about each other very much.

 

You remember how she stood over your dreamself, waiting for the day you would wake. She could have been out exploring, hanging with her blinding bitch of a friend or actually painting the moon red. Instead, she chose to wait with you so that she could spend time with you when you woke.

 

It's a shame that when you _did_ wake, you were put to sleep almost immediately.

 

You slide off the horn pile and ask Terezi if she wants to go visit Prospit while you're here. She turns her hidden face up to you again and shrugs.

 

“C'mon, you can show me around like you always wanted to. It'll be something that's actually fun to do while we're here.” Your standing and you offer your hand to her.

 

She pulls her hood up a little past her nose so she can get a whiff of you. She releases the red fabric and reaches for your hand, clasping her cool hand around yours. You pull her up and ask her where she wants to start.

 

She shrugs a little and tugs you along with her as she begins to walk. You're toted down the hallway, past the sleeping souls and flesh and blood bodies. As you exit this portion of the meteor, the floor rapidly twists from gray metal to light blue and white wood. A thick branch curls out and away from this bubble as the two of you come into a part of Terezi's memory.

 

The branch tapers miles away into a grand golden bubble. Shining walls and bright spires stick out from the great chained ball. The iridescent moon is lovely and you regret that your only memories of it are covered in blood and burned to a crisp.

 

 

The two of you stop and look at it, Terezi's hood still hanging over her face. The yellow that reflects from the golden moon casts a glow on the two of you, it creates an eerie appearance of fire on her red hood.

 

You reach over to tug on it, pull it down so you don't have to see the false fire anymore. She flinches and bats your hands away, holding her hood down.

 

“Terezi, what's the matter?” you ask, your hand still half-extended towards her.

 

She shakes her head at you and says it's nothing.

 

“Did something happen? Are you alright?” Your worry mounts.

 

“I've never been better,” she states, turning away from you a bit.

 

You frown, hard and concerned, but you don't push her for more. You ask her if she wants to show you more, and she nods, taking one hand from her hood and grabbing your fingers again.

 

You walk further down the branch, down to arts where gold flakes begin to show up on the wood. She's facing the ground, but she lifts a finger up and points to one of six spires protruding from Prospit's moon.

 

“That one was my room,” she states flatly. She then points to one a few spires away. “That one was yours.”

 

“How can you tell, they all look the same,” you grumble, but you're staring at the spire that held a copy of your own body for so long.

 

For the first time in a while, you hear a hint of a smile in her voice. “It still smells like you, even from here.”

 

You roll your eyes and give a small snort, your tone not coming out as disdainful as you'd intended it to. “Good to see you haven't lost your sense of humor.”

 

A small chuckles comes from her and she asks you if you want to see your room. You say sure and she braces her legs on the branch before giving a pretty magnificent kick-off. However, she doesn't get far because you're slow and don't know how to leave the ground. She falls back down, her hand still clasping yours.

 

“Karkat, c'mon, just give it a jump!” she says, and you can only see her lips. She frowning a little at you and she tugs on your arm again.

 

“I think I missed the part of the game where we learned how to _fly_ ,” you say dryly, but you assume the same stance she had moments ago. You give a hearty shove, but only manage to get about 7 inches from the ground before landing heavily on your feet.

 

She says that she's seen more impressive flying from an oinkbeast.

 

You tell her that's it's not as easy as she makes it seem.

 

“Alright,” she begins, her hand never leaving yours. “You have to _know_ that you can fly. You have to _know_ that this is a place where wings don't mean jack-shit, and that it's all in the legwork. You have to _know_ that this moon was made especially for us.”

 

“That sounds like a fairytale, and it sounds really stupid.”

 

She gives your hand a vicious squeeze. “Just do it, asshole.”

 

You say fine and close your eyes. You try to envision yourself flying and not looking like a candy-ass fool. You fail miserably at this and try to imagine how flying without wings would work, and it doesn't. You crash and break your body on a spire, red and gray matter splattering onto the gold flooring. Not a great scenario.

 

You picture how this place was made, fresh and new, just for you and 5 of your friends. It seems plausible, it's about time you got some sort of payment for all of your hard work. You crouch and give a hard push from the ground and are very surprised when you don't fall back down. Terezi gives a laugh and you open your eyes to see you're rising up.

 

You look at Terezi's hand, still clutching yours, then up at her face. She's got one hand holding her hood down still, but her grinning lips can be seen. She tugs on you and pulls you along as the two of you soar over to the golden towers rising above the landscape. Her cape flaps wildly behind her, the red streaking harshly through the sky.

 

 

The two of you make it to the tower in record time.

 

She steps onto the windowsill first, her feet practiced at landing on the golden ledges. You follow her in a less-than-graceful landing, falling through the window and landing on the ground inside the room. She chuckles at you, the sound watery and you get up, grumbling about over-polished railings.

 

She's standing by the window across the room, inhaling the landscape. You walk over and glance out with her, the golden expanse a truly beautiful. She points out the royal palace to you, then to the other towers. She names who was in each one, stuttering a little when she spots Vriska's.

 

The both of you stare in silence for a few moments before you ask her if she's alright again.

 

She shrugs, pulling her cape around herself more tightly.

 

“C'mon, Tez, this doesn't cheer you up in the slightest?” you ask, tugging on her cape a little.

 

She tightens her grasp, but her response is at least a little happier. “Yeah, I actually liked seeing Prospit again.” She moves away from the window and sits down on the slab of cushions that makes a piss poor replacement for a recuperacoon.

 

You move to sit next to her. “You ever get bored of sitting here?”

 

She faces you. “No, you were so much easier to handle when you were sleeping.” She tugs her hood a little further back so her lips are exposed. “You weren't frowning all the time or shouting about stupid shit.”

 

“Wow, that was rude.”

 

She laughs and turns away from you, chuckling to herself as she faces out the window. Her expression slowly sobers and you bump arms with her.

 

“What was that for?” she asks, her lips quirking into a pout.

 

You lean a little closer to her. “Earlier tonight, or today, or _whenever_ , remember what I said to you?”

 

She frowns and stays silent.

 

“You shouldn't waste sadness on these people. You shouldn't want to be like them, we were so much cooler than these fools. Just because they're older doesn't make their problems any bigger than ours,” you say, getting riled up as you pontificate. “Hell, the shit _we_ had to put up with was so much worse than what they did.”

 

She's still silent.

 

You're not.

 

“Your “rad sister” is not nearly as great as you are. You put up with so much from everyone and you do it like it's _fun_. You're the strongest person I know, you don't take shit from anyone. You're amazing at everything you do and you're so _smart_ I don't even know how you thought it was a good idea to come along and listen to me preach to you like this.” You sigh. _“Fuck.”_

 

You hear a small sniff and you say, “Oh, _fuck_ no.”

 

You reach over and tug up her hood, but she wraps her arms around your chest and presses her face there, a heavy breath beating her frame. You sit there in surprise for a few moments, your arms just suspended in the air while she keeps her face pressed into your sweater.

 

You eventually lower your arms and wrap them around her, holding her as she collects herself. The two of you stay like for god-knows how long, and you hope the bubble hasn't passed by the meteor yet.

 

After a while, Terezi unsticks herself from your shirt and leans up to peck you on the cheek. You blush so harshly, you think you're a little dizzy from the mass arrival of blood to your pan. You're going to ask her what that was about, but you look at her and can't get the words out.

 

Terezi opened her burn-out eyes and the first thing that assails you is that they're _not_ her eyes.

 

She blinks a few times and looks away from you.

 

You back away a little bit, stunned and in shock. “Terezi, what did you _do?_ ”

 

She sighs and pulls her legs up to her chest. “Aranea offered to fix them a while back.”

 

“Yeah, but I thought you, you know, _liked_ being blind,” you offer, scooting a little closer to her.

 

“I do!” she asserts, turning to you again. Her eyes are wide and open. You take a moment to notice how there's almost hardly any gray left in them, being almost entirely shot-through with teal. “It was a dumb thing to do and I really wish I could take it back.”

 

You're confused. “What happened?” you ask. Then, you get angry. “Did anyone tell you to do this? Did someone talk you into doing something this _stupid_ \--”

 

“Karkat, I wanted to get it done,” Terezi cuts in. You're silent and staring at her and she just sighs again and attempts to pull her hood over her eyes again.

 

You tug her hood away from her face, your actions and voice gentle. “Don't hide them, you don't have to.”

 

“I'm not hiding them, I don't want to see right now,” she mutters, but she makes no attempt to bat your hands away as she did before. “It was dumb to do, and I got rid of the thing that I most attached my personality to.”

 

You huff out a breath and if ruffles her hair a little. “Look, Terezi, you're more than what you can do. You're so much more than being blind or being able to see!” You pull her a little closer to yourself and she curls into you. “You're someone who beat an omniscient being at its own game. You beat someone who was basically a _god_ at their own game. I mean, I may not know what I'm talking about half of the time, but I'm so sure that no matter what, eyes or not, you see so much more than anyone else could.”

 

Her arms are around you again and she whispers into your chest.

 

You ask her what she said.

 

She leans up and wraps her arms around your neck instead and whispers into your neck, your ear. “You're too sweet for this.”

 

You hug her back, tightly and aching for what's best for her. “You're not as crazed as you were when we were younger.”

 

“You're not as much of an asshole as you used to be,” she rebuffs, rubbing her nose into your skin and taking a deep breath. You're silently holding each other for an indeterminate amount of time, the simulated clouds passing by the window slowly as you listen to each other breathe. Then, Terezi asks you if you want to go red again.

 

Your pusher contracts to painful proportions before jumping and slamming into overdrive, punching your ribcage.

 

You manage to get out a mangled “Dave?” in between your fits of incoherent gurgling, but Terezi just shakes her head a little.

 

“Dave and I have been going south for a while, we ended it a little while ago,” she states, sounding a little forlorn. “You think you're a fuck up?” She pulls away from you and gestures to herself. “I am King of the Fuck-Ups.”

 

You ask her if she wants to talk about it, and she says no. You shuffle a little and she pushes the two of you so you're lying on the cushion together.

 

She lays her head on your shoulder, her horns piercing the fabric slightly. Her arms are around you again, and you mirror her movements, your emotions unable to sort themselves out. You're angry that she's sad and sad that she's angry at herself. You're ecstatic that she wants to flush with you again, and you're scared of what's happened to her. You're frightened by the smell of paint that has bled into the fabric of her cape and angry that she's not happy.

 

You're feelings do a strange scratching thing at your eyes and before you know it, a few thin tears have squeezed themselves out. You sniff and scrub at them fiercely, but Terezi has noticed and she gives a watery chuckle at your reddening face.

 

She leans up and kisses you softly, on the lips. A slight gesture that means the world to you. More time passes with the two of you just murmuring to no one in particular. You eventually ask her if she wants to get going yet, the two of you need to talk.

 

She says she wants to stay here for a bit longer, she's always wanted to spend time on Prospit with you. Now she has eons of time, but it doesn't seem like enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the prompt I got:
> 
> Before the Dream Bubble passes by, Karkat wakes up in the horn pile to find Terezi watching over him and remembers that she watched over his sleeping dreamself while waiting for him to wake up so she could show him around Prospit.  She still seems depressed and he thinks that maybe a tour of her memories on the golden moon would cheer her up by reminding her of simpler times.  He honestly isn’t trying to win back her red affections with the suggestion (it’s more like a last ditch effort to repair their friendship enough that they’re at least comfortable around each other again, though of course he still aches for something more) since he really doesn’t think he deserves to be with her but Terezi’s feelings were already resurfacing from his earlier attempt to comfort her and his continued sweet and contrite behaviour leads her to surprise him with a second chance, and he’s pretty much moved to tears which may or may not get Terezi emotional too.
> 
> it was nice to write, actually


End file.
